Legends of the Riftwar (106 page)

‘And we haven't got all of it, yet, not the fee for the new one,' Skinny said.

Forten grunted as he put away his dice, then poured more wine from a pitcher into his mug. ‘Bad enough those little 'uns hiding and skulking in the walls. Fair near broke my head, where they'd rubbed grease on them stairs by the main gate. That new one, he could be real trouble if he got loose, big as a grown man. Bugger him anyway. The Baron and that wizard'll sort him out soon enough.'

The mercenaries fell silent for an instant, looking uneasy; one or two made signs against evil with their hands, and they all drank.

Flora turned her head. Lorrie's face was blazing with hope. They drew back to the other corner of the room, speaking quietly. ‘That's them!' Lorrie said. ‘The new one–big as a man–that must be Bram. And the little ones, they must be Rip, and some other children!'

Bram yes
, Flora thought.
And maybe it's your little brother. More likely than not, yes.

She nodded, and Lorrie went on, her smile fading: ‘They must be in the manor, though. How could we get in? It's like a fort, and guarded, and…you know what the innkeeper said about the castle.'

Flora shivered. ‘That it feels wrong? Yes. But–'

‘But we've got to get them out,' Lorrie said. ‘And soon. You heard. Something special planned for Bram!'

The girl from Krondor nodded, tempted to shiver again. Then she thought rapidly; things she'd heard from other girls, and from other Mockers. ‘Wait a minute,' she breathed. ‘I think we can get in! And those hired swords will be the way we can.' She felt in her skirt pocket; the little sack of ‘something special' was still there.
Jimmy knew what he was doing when he left me some of this!
she thought. ‘Here's how we'll do it.'

 

Flora rearranged her bodice, unlacing it so she could turn under the cloth, giving her as plunging a neckline as any she had worn while walking the streets of Krondor. She removed the kerchief she had worn while riding in the cart, and shook her hair out, letting it fall loose over her shoulders. She tugged at her bodice one more time, ensuring it showed enough to make acceptable working clothes. The night had gone cool and overcast, with the smell of rain on the wind from the sea. That raised goose-bumps; it did nothing to dim her wide smile as the two troopers stumbled out of the door of the Holly Bush. A backdrop of red firelight silhouetted them for a moment, and then their weaving steps were in the muck.

‘Well, hello,' Flora crooned.

The mercenaries stopped and goggled; it was Forten and Sonnart. Their companions had headed home earlier, and not quite as drunk.

‘Who're you?' one of them asked.

‘Not the innkeeper's daughter with the big teats,' the other observed owlishly.

‘I'm the new girl in these parts, boys,' she said cheerfully, rolled a hip and winked, mustering up every trick she had learned to overcome revulsion; she had lain with more repulsive men in her day, but that was before she had come to think of herself as having more to her life than surviving from day to day. Choking down an urge to gag, she asked, ‘You walking home, or do you want to come to the stables and ride, first?'

Negotiations went quickly; the men were practically lowing as they panted after her, bumping into each other and huffing as they staggered in her wake around the rear of the inn.

‘This's far enough,' one of them grunted, clutching at her.

‘It's muddy and it's going to rain,' Flora cast back over her shoulder. ‘There's a roof and nice straw and horse-blankets in the stables. Only a few more steps!'

For all they'd taken aboard, the mercenaries had a well-developed sense of self-preservation; they made her go first through the doors into the darkened stables, and their hands went to their hilts when they saw Lorrie standing there.

They relaxed again, grinning, as they saw it was another girl. ‘Ruthia!' one blurted. ‘This is our lucky day!'

Lorrie held her hand forward, palm up. As Forten reached for her, she took in a sharp breath and blew across the hand into his face.

Flora was already dodging sideways, holding her breath. The stable was a dim cavern, with only a little light filtering in through the door and the slits under the eaves, but she'd placed the hickory axe-handle precisely where it needed to be, and her hand fell on it.

Forten was already down, falling limp and face-forward in the packed manure and straw of the stable floor. Sonnart behind him hadn't got much of the dust in his face; he gave a strangled shout and managed to half-draw his sword, a glitter of bright metal in the darkness. Flora took a firm two-handed grip on the smooth length of dense springy hardwood.

Thock!

The yard-long axe-handle landed on his right kneecap with the sound of a maul hitting a block of wood. The mercenary gave a high shrill scream that died away to a gurgle as Flora collected herself and smacked her weapon down again, this time on the back of his head.

Light flared as Lorrie took a bucket off the lamp they'd brought out. Horses stamped uneasily in the stalls, and one snorted as he caught the scent of blood. Both mercenaries were alive, but Sonnart wouldn't be feeling well when he woke up.

Lorrie drew her belt knife, teeth showing in what was most definitely not a smile. Flora hurried over and caught her arm.

‘No!' she said.

Lorrie turned on her. ‘Why not?' she said fiercely. ‘They work for the man who had my brother kidnapped and my parents killed!'

‘But they're not the ones who did it,' Flora said. ‘I wouldn't stop you if it was. But if we kill these two Tael will get into a lot of trouble–hanging trouble–swine they may be, but they're a baron's men-at-arms, Lorrie!'

‘And you heard what they said about Bram!' Lorrie went on, but the wild look was dying out of her eyes, and she stopped trying to tug her arm free of Flora's grip.

‘Ah,' Flora said. ‘Well, I had a thought about that.' She held up two dried pinecones from the tinder-box of the smithy. ‘You see how all the leaves on the pinecones run one way?'

‘Yes?' Lorrie said, puzzled.

 

Half an hour later, two cloaked and hooded figures rode down the highway from the Holly Bush towards Baron Bernarr's manor. One of them scratched disgustedly.

‘Didn't they ever boil these to get the nits out?' she said.

‘It could be worse,' the other replied.

‘How?'

‘Let me tell you about Noxious Neville, some day,' she replied.

 

The Baron groaned, and again clutched at his sheets. But now dream and memory were blurred, as were waking and sleeping. He drifted from knowing what night it was, lying in his bed, to thinking he was a younger man, facing terrible choices.

He stood looking in horror at his wife's pale form, life draining from her as blood pooled in the bed, the midwife clutching the crying baby.

A voice at his elbow. ‘I can help.'

Without looking he knew it was Lyman. ‘What can you do?'

‘Cover the lady, and leave the room,' commanded the visitor and it was done.

Then he was outside the room, the midwife already gone with the child to give it up to the wolves. But…

Bernarr's eyes fluttered, and he realized it was night and he was alone, and the baby was now a youth, chained away in a secret room. He groaned and rolled over, clutching the pillow as he shut his eyes.

Lyman said, ‘An hour is but an instant, and a day but seconds within that room. She will abide while we seek a way to keep her from Death's Hall.'

Healers came, chirurgeons and a priest of Dala, and another from a sect down in the desert of Great Kesh, but none could revive the lady of the house when Lyman lowered the time spell. Each time he failed, he vowed to redouble his efforts to find a way. And each time Bernarr accepted his vow, he felt more darkness seize his mind and heart.

Soon, Lyman had become a permanent member of the house, given his own rooms and places for his servants. Books were purchased and scrolls and tomes sent by collectors across the breadth of civilization. No matter what the price, Bernarr paid, but no solution was found.

Then the books of dark magic appeared, and blood was needed. First animal, but then…

Bernarr sat up, a scream torn from his chest, a man tormented beyond endurance. He forced his eyes open, willed himself awake and pushed himself to the glassed doors leading to his balcony. Throwing aside the sash, he opened the doors and stepped out into the cold night darkness. Only two more nights. He took a deep, cold breath of air. Then he whispered, ‘In two nights, it will be over.'

The storm raged.

‘Meg!' a voice bawled outside the cottage.

Thunder rumbled outside, and flashes of lightning filtered through the boards of the shutters. Rain hissed down on the thatch, but it was tight and showed no leaks as yet.

Jimmy looked up from putting a final edge on his dagger; Jarvis was already throwing his cloak around his shoulders.

‘Meg!' the voice shouted again, and this time it cracked in an adolescent squeak.

Jarvis opened the door; a boy blundered in. Jimmy put his age at about two years older than himself, with a revolting crop of pimples that he'd been spared himself so far, praise be to Banath, God of Thieves. The lad was dripping from the steady rain outside, and panting as if he'd run several miles–which the rich spatter of mud that coated him to waist-height also bore out.

‘Come in, boy,' the cottager growled; Meg brought a cup of something hot and herbal from the small pot she kept on the side of the hearth.

‘Why, Davy, what are you doing out on a night like this?'

The boy paused at the sight of the two strangers; Jimmy gave him a smile and snicked the dagger home in its sheath at his belt; the firelight caught the fretwork on the guard of his rapier.

‘Travellers,' the cottager said. ‘Now, Davy-boy, why'd you come calling for Meg? Someone ill, or come to their time?'

Aside to Jarvis and the young thief: ‘This un's Davy, son to Tael at the Holly Bush. Not the first time Meg's been called out on a filthy night.'

‘Two of the Baron's armsmen,' Davy said, sipping at the herbal drink and calming. ‘Beaten! Naked and beaten in the stable.'

‘Serves them right,' his host growled. ‘Let 'em fester, I say.'

‘Your mother could handle bruises, or setting a bone broken in a brawl,' Meg said. As she spoke she went to the bed and hauled out another box, this one of boards covered in rawhide. ‘What else is wrong with them?'

Davy looked at the men, shuffled from one foot to the other, and then blurted, ‘They walked out of the door and claimed that a…a whore lured them to the stables, and her pimp beat them!'

The cottager scowled more deeply. ‘A likely story. There aren't no loose women at the Holly Bush.'

‘That's what they say,' Davy claimed. His pimply face looked more hideous as he blushed. ‘And…well, their clothes and weapons and all were gone, and they had their hair and beards cut off, and they were all rolled and slobbered with dung, and…and–'

‘Out with it, boy!'

‘And someone shoved a pinecone up their arses! Both of them!'

Meg began to cackle with laughter as she sorted through her herbs and simples and tools. After a moment of blank incredulity, so did her husband, howling until he had to bend nearly double and hug his ribs, staggering across the cottage and bumping into the walls.

‘Ah, many's the time I've wanted to do that to one of the toplofty cut-throat bastards myself,' the old man wheezed. ‘Hee, hee, hee! They'll be sittin' down careful for months, they will–and squatting cautious-like at the jakes. Hee, hee!'

Davy gave an uneasy grin, but by the way he was standing he was also tightening his buttocks.

Jimmy chuckled, too.
Probably funnier to hear about than to see,
he thought.
Still, I wouldn't mind hearing the same news about Jocko Radburn, or del Garza, or their master either.

‘And them girls is gone,' Davy went on.

‘Girls?' Jimmy said sharply.

‘Them girls that came in the dog-cart from Land's End yesterday 'bout suppertime,' he said. ‘Pretty as pictures, they was.' He gave an enthusiastic description.

‘Flora!' Jimmy and Jarvis said at the same time.

‘–for all one had a limp,' the boy finished.

‘Lorrie!' Jimmy said.

The bottom dropped out of Jimmy's stomach, and Jarvis Coe cursed quietly in a language Jimmy didn't recognize. They looked at each other.

‘That's torn it,' Jarvis said grimly.

Jimmy nodded, pulling on his oil-treated wool cloak. He yanked the hood forward, reflecting bitterly that this was what came of Flora's newfound sense of responsibility. She'd got him poking his head into a sewer rats' den again.

‘No time for subtlety,' he said.

‘No time at all,' Coe replied.

The rain blew cold into their faces as they left the cosy, smoky warmth of the cottage.

The skin wrinkled on the back of Jimmy's neck, and he didn't think it was down to the trickle of cold water; rather it was due to the thought of Flora and Lorrie in that place.

 

Bram looked up sharply, startled out of an uneasy doze. Thunder crashed, and lightning glared through the high small window–far too small for a man to squeeze through, and barred with iron, even if he hadn't been chained.

It wasn't time for the meagre ration of bread he got; he'd be weak with hunger by now, if it weren't for the food the children brought him. It wasn't time to empty the slop bucket either. But he could hear the rasp of a key in the lock. A moment later, he was squinting against the yellow light of a lantern held high in the turnkey's fist, a tin cylinder pierced to let the candle-shine out.

Then it went out, a freak gust turning it into a wisp of bitter-smelling smoke gusting out through the metal. The turnkey cursed, and so did the mercenaries crowding behind him.

‘Well, get another'n lit: we need light for this,' one of them said to a man behind him.

Bram grinned. He didn't feel the cold fear that sometimes blew through this chamber. Instead he felt something that radiated anger–but it wasn't aimed at him, and somehow it made him feel warm and safer, however mad that was. It reminded him of his mother.

Another lamp came, and went out; the third guttered wildly but didn't extinguish, since the holder shielded the flame with his hand. With the light, the armed men advanced on Bram. One carried a singlejack, a light blacksmith's hammer, and a chisel.

‘No games,' a big mercenary said; Bram recognized him from the fight at the ford, and scowled. The big man grinned at him, and went on: ‘Lord Bernarr says we can't kill you. But we can mess you up, eh? Nothin' says you have to have sound legs or unbroken arms, right?'

He shoved another burlap bag over Bram's head, and drew the drawstring painfully tight. The young man gasped, drawing in the sweetish scent of the oats that had filled the bag not long ago, and sneezed helplessly.

‘Foolishness,' someone said–Bram couldn't see a thing now, just feel the rough hands pushing and shoving him. ‘Why not leave the chains on?'

‘Sump'n about cold iron, the magicker said,' another voice replied–the weasel-like skinny man's.

The hammer peened musically on the back of a cold chisel, and the manacles fell away so that Bram gave a grunt of relief. Then he bit his lips against a yell, as rough rope bit into his wrists where the iron had rubbed them raw. His feet were still free, though, and he was direly tempted to kick out.

Better not. Just get a beating,
he thought.
Wait for the moment. Wherever they're taking me, it can't be worse than being chained in this room with invisible spirits running loose through it.

As the men hustled him out, he heard an incongruous sound: the whistle of a poorwit, one of the little birds that haunted hedgerows back at home in the valley.

Beneath the rough cloth, Bram grinned. He'd taught young Rip how to whistle that way just last summer. He had more friends here than his captors suspected.

 

Lorrie looked around, restraining the impulse to rub at her leg. It was itching and hurting; the itching indicated that it was healing, but it was a long way from healed, and if she pushed it too far she could rip it open again.

Bram
, she thought.
Rip
. She could do anything she had to do.

‘I wish Jimmy were here,' Flora said nervously.

‘Nobody's seen hide nor hair of him,' Lorrie said.

‘They wouldn't, if he didn't want them to,' Flora said. ‘But
we've
got to do something now.'

Lightning rolled again, showing the grim bulk of the manor ahead, outlined against the night sky; rain hissed down unceasingly. She squinted. ‘That's a light!' she said. ‘Look, there, in the tower at the corner.'

A wavering yellow glow came from the narrow windows there; narrow enough to double as arrow-slits.

‘Maybe they won't notice us, then,' Flora said.

As they approached the grounds, a vague uneasy feeling visited them. It seemed to get stronger with every second as they neared the entrance. ‘Something's wrong,' whispered Flora.

Lorrie said, ‘Maybe we should go look for Jimmy?'

Flora said, ‘I think you're right.' She was verging on turning around the dog cart, when she said, ‘Wait a minute!'

‘What?'

‘Do you really want to abandon looking for Bram?' Flora asked.

‘Well, we wouldn't be really abandoning him, but we'd be…'

‘Putting it off just a little?'

‘Yes, that would be exactly what we'd be doing,' Lorrie agreed. ‘And, besides, maybe the weather will be nicer tomorrow and I think we'd do better looking…' She stopped when she saw Flora get a strange expression on her face.

Flora's forehead was lined in concentration, and she set her jaw as if she were trying not to yell out. She narrowed her gaze and said, ‘Damn it!' and flicked the reins. Flora urged the horse forward until they came to the wrought-iron gates; there was a small room beside them, built into the wall that circled the garden. It was only six feet tall, although topped with spikes; built long after the manor, and to keep out game and livestock rather than enemies. As if willing the words out, Flora asked, ‘What is it you'd rather be doing than going in there right now?'

Lorrie pressed herself back into the leather of the seat as if trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and the gate. ‘Anything, actually. Just about anything you could name.'

Flora nodded emphatically. ‘Yup. I'm thinking we just ran into one of those wards rich people sometimes pay old Alban for.'

‘Who's Alban?'

‘Magician I knew once,' was all Flora said. ‘You put this thing called a ward around something you don't want people to bother, and they come up with reasons why they don't want to bother with it, just like they thought it up all on their own.'

‘I think I understand,' said Lorrie, ‘but wouldn't this be better if we found Jimmy first?'

‘It would,' said Flora as handed the reins to Lorrie. She got down from the dog-cart, one hand in the pocket under her cloak which held more of the powder that hit men like a fist, and walked over to the gatekeeper's room. Over her shoulder she said, ‘But if we did find him, we'd find other reasons not to come here. Right now I want to be anywhere else more than I want to be here, so that tells me that this is where I need to be.'

Lorrie didn't fully understand, but she said, ‘So we go anyway?'

‘Having Jimmy here would be better, but we go anyway.' She stuck her head into the window that was the only opening on this side and looked around. ‘Nobody here,' she said, pulling her head out. ‘But it stinks: someone's been living here.'

‘How do we get through?' Lorrie asked, looking at the tall iron gates with a worried look.
I might be able to climb that with both legs working proper,
she thought unhappily.
With this, I'd have trouble getting on a horse again, once I'm down on the ground. Maybe we should wait until my leg is better…

‘Not a problem,' Flora said, interrupting Lorrie's next reason for not going inside.

She took off her cloak and pushed it through the gate's grille, then unbuckled her borrowed–stolen–swordbelt and did likewise with that, fitting it through carefully.

Then she backed up half a dozen steps, ran forward lightly, and jumped like a cat. That put her nearly head-high on the iron; she swarmed up the rest of the slippery metal as if it were a ladder, and flipped herself neatly over the top before clambering down on the other side. She jumped free when still higher
than her own height, and landed lightly, perfectly in control as she took the force with bent knees.

Lorrie goggled. What was it she did for a living in Krondor? she wondered. Set up for a mountebank and tumbler?

Flora was grinning as she heaved at the long bolt that kept the gates fastened from the inside. ‘No lock!' she said. ‘Just this bolt, and a chain looped through it.'

The chain clattered free, and Flora retrieved her cloak and weapons before they rode up toward the gates of the manor.

‘I'm coming, Bram, Rip!' Lorrie said grimly. Once spoken, those words seem to vanquish the terrible feeling she had that they should do more before attempting to enter the grounds.

 

‘Who are you?' Bram said.

‘Silence,' the oily voice replied, and a brief stabbing pain came from everywhere and nowhere.

Breath hissed out between his teeth. The room smelled wrong, like a sickroom: old rotten blood and malevolence. There was cold stone under his back, and the mercenaries were fastening him down with leather ties. Oddly, they went around his knees and elbows, not his wrists and ankles.

Oh, gods
, he thought sickly.
It's sized for children! This is where they sacrificed the children they stole
. Even then, his belly twisted with nausea.

The mercenaries went about their business as briskly as if they'd been trussing a hog for slaughter. It left him stretched out like a starfish, painfully so since the ties were at a slightly lower level than the ridged surface on which he rested. Cold air flowed across his skin as his breeches and shirt were cut away and pulled off. Then fingers fumbled at the drawstring of the bag that covered his head. He could already see a diffuse glow of light through the coarse weave of the cloth. When it was pulled away, he had a brief glimpse of a large richly-furnished room with windows,
two doors, and through one a bed on which rested a beautiful, pale-faced woman, apparently asleep.